Brooding's My Specialty
by Shakespeare's Catamaran
Summary: or, The Ring. For such a gentle giant, Sam is really good at brooding. He broods when Dean comes back to the motel after a hot night out, after every hot night out, and finally Dean asks why. It's a real tearjerker; fair warning.


_For such a gentle giant, Sam is really good at brooding._

 _He broods when Dean plays his rock and roll too loud, when his desktop background changes to a moose, when all the hot water is gone._

 _He broods when the body count is high, when they're too late, when the body in the morgue is a child._

 _He broods when Dean comes back to the motel after a hot night out, and finally Dean asks why._

The _Ocilla Times'_ simple website glowed on Sam's laptop screen. He minimized the article on the rash of strange murder-suicides and glanced at the tacky clock on the motel wall.

1:47 AM. Sam sighed and pressed his fingers into his temples. _He said he'd be back by midnight._

The Impala came rumbling into the parking lot and soon the thin presswood door flung open. Dean swaggered in with a grin and rumpled clothes, his hair a tangled mess, and plopped onto the bed. He started to take off his boots, humming. Dean smelled like passion and sweat and cheap cologne. Sam looked at him between his fingers and bit back a yawn.

Boots in the corner, Dean let out a gravelly sigh and folded his arms behind his head, lying back on the cheap comforter. "Man, Sammy, she had a _gift._ Both of them, actually. You should've been there, man. You sure missed out, turning down that little blonde."

Sam felt something hot and heavy and painful blossom in his heart and he went back to the laptop.

"Come on, Sam, you little prude," Dean slid off his jacket and pushed himself onto his elbows. "You gotta promise me- next time a hot blonde offers to do you, take her up on it. Okay?"

Sam threw his head back and gave an exasperated growl before dropping his gaze back to the newspaper article and its headline proclaiming the seventh incident this month. The weight in his heart went to his throat and he shoves back the thought of gentle blond waves and aquamarine eyes and a voice like love.

Dean looked up and saw the hardness in his brother's eyes and the brooding and frowned. "Sam?"

He stopped at the next article when he saw the journalist's name and the heat pricked the back of his eyes.

 _Jessica._

"Come on, man. Why are you so against a little fun?" Dean put the last nail in the coffin.

Sam is sick of Dean's latest hooker binge, and he's sick of Dean not knowing, and he's sick of Dean's offers of sex with strangers, and he's sick of missing her.

Sam slammed the laptop shut, harder than he should have, and pushed it towards the other end of the table. His head dropped into his hands and the fingers knot into his hair.

Worry flared in Dean, and he sat up.

Sam took a deep breath and stood up suddenly, the chair screeching on the floor, and crossed the room to his bag. He grabbed the canvas straps and tossed it on the bed, unzipping it and pulling out the small cloth bag that held his own journal and a few things to write with and a little beaten black box.

Sam snatched up the box and dropped the bag on the bed, the journal and the pens sliding out across the covers. He crossed the room again and dropped the box in Dean's lap, returning to his uncomfortable too-small chair.

Dean stared at the tiny rounded black cube for just a moment and the line that wrapped around its sides. He glanced up at Sam, who is sitting across from him and glaring, jaw clenched.

An awful feeling coiled in Dean's gut, and he doesn't want to open the box because then he'd know for sure and he'd feel like such a _bastard._

When he puts his fingernails in the crack and lifts, the box snaps open.

The inside was lined with fine lavender velvet and in the center of the box sat a raised platform.

On the platform lay a ring.

Dean felt like shooting himself in the knee.

The ring was a shining silver, recently polished, and it was set with two tapered diamonds between which was a sparkling oval of robin's egg blue topaz.

Engraved in the inner surface of the ring were the words "To Jessica, my rock, my fortress, my love".

"Oh, _Sam,"_ Dean said, and Sam cut him off with a deep breath.

"I loved her, Dean." Dean looked at Sam. "Dean, I _loved_ her. More than anything. She was it."

Sam's throat bobbed. "I don't- I had the speech, Dean. I was going to do it in the morning, when she woke up, and I was going to get down on my knees and ask her to marry me." Sam blinked rapidly. "And then I came home and- and-"

Sam shook his head and pressed a hand over his mouth, and Dean didn't know what to say.


End file.
